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Inbound call center service, outbound call center services, customer service, class registration, seminar registration, and answering services...just a few of the services we are able to provide for your company. We bring great people and cutting edge technology together to provide the best in call center services for your company. We are available whenever you need us and can help you make the most of your business. If you need services ranging from answering services, inbound call center services, or total telemarketing call center support, we will be here.

Glossary of Answering Service / Call Center Terms

Industry Definitions

If you are not familiar with answering service or call center industry, please review the following definitions of industry terms so you can become a more educated consumer.

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PBX: see Private Branch Exchange

PCP: See Not Ready

Peg Count: A simple count of the number of times an event has occurred, like moving a peg on a cribbage board or making notches on a piece of wood.

Percent (%) ABD: % Average Business Day – A comparison of call volume for a specific day to the average call volume for that day as measured over a period of time (week, month, year); used to determine repeated patterns in call volume and to aid development of forecasts for tour schedules.

Percent (%) Occupancy: Percentage of board time agents occupying positions actually spend handling calls or are otherwise unavailable to handle incoming calls.

Personal broadcast: A type of outbound call center call that consists of a pre-recorded message that is phoned out automatically to a large number of customer phone numbers stored in a database.

POCCS: Position Occupied CCS – The amount of time measured in Centrum Call Seconds or XCS that agent positions are occupied (plugged in) during a measured period of time.

Position IDs: When an agent wants to receive ACD calls at their telephone, they first must log into the telephone system. Depending on how the telephone system is programmed, there are two different methods an agent can use to log in. The first method uses a Log In ID. When the agent wants to take ACD calls, they enter a (usually four-digit) number. The Northern telephone system then tracks their telephone activity according to that log in number. The other method uses a Position ID. When the agent wants to take ACD calls, they hit their ACD button twice. The Northern telephone system then tracks their telephone activity according to the position ID of the telephone that they used to log in. The major difference between the two different methods is that log in IDs track the telephone activity of a number (which may appear at different telephone locations) and position IDs track the telephone activity of a particular telephone (regardless of whose using it). If your agents always sit at the same telephones, then the position ID method will track the telephone activity of the agents (because the activity of the telephone is always the same as the activity of the agent). If your agents sometime sit at different telephones, then, in order to track the telephone activity of the agents correctly, the Northern telephone system needs to be configured to use log in IDs.

Post Call Processing (PCP): see Not Ready

Predictive dialers: Outbound call center software or hardware where phone numbers in a database are automatically dialed. Once a connection is made with a person, the call center routes the call to a company representative. Predictive dialers can detect if there is no answer, if the line is busy, or if an answering machine picks up, at which time the telephone number is automatically disconnected and put back into the the queue to be dialed again.

Private Branch Exchange (PBX): A switching system providing telephone communications between internal stations and external telephone networks. The term generally refers to manually operated switching equipment as opposed to computer operated switching.